


As I Collide, I See I Am a Paradox

by ughineedcoffee



Series: The Runt of the Litter [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Family, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Little Sisters, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Winchester Sister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28818993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ughineedcoffee/pseuds/ughineedcoffee
Summary: With Dean hurt and Sam having left for school just under two years ago, John has to actually spend some time taking care of his four-year-old daughter. He flounders a little and thinks a lot.
Series: The Runt of the Litter [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112966
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	As I Collide, I See I Am a Paradox

**Author's Note:**

> The first two one shots I'm posting in this series both feature Anna as a young child, but I promise I have many where she's older. This one features John, though, and I know some people hate him but I mostly find him really, REALLY interesting (if infuriating). Happy Reading <3

_One_.

Remember to breathe. Always breathe. If you can't focus on anything, you just focus on your breathing. Panic fades and leaves you perfectly and pragmatically in control the very moment you remember to breathe.

_Two_.

So John breathed. He needed to remain calm and alert all at once, to get a handle on everything before him. The supernatural threat was gone, but blood was pouring steadily from Dean's side. They were not out of the woods yet, figuratively or literally.

_Three_.

Inhale. Draw in strength and let your optimistically methodical side kick in. Information, control, confidence. Exhale. Release the tension, the hectic fear, the fresh and angry memories.

_Four_.

John reminded himself just who the hell he was. A hunter. A father. He'd seen more blood than this before, even coming from his children, from Dean. He could handle this.

_Five._

Time up. Time to handle this.

"Dad, m'ok," the weak voice came from his strong son.

John's hands pressed against Dean's wound moved just a little. "I know, Champ," he said, fully centered and grounded now. Yes, his heart was racing in his chest. No, he was not panicking. He moved one hand from Dean's side to cup his face. "Look here."

Those green eyes, Mary's eyes, unfocused and dancing clumsily even as Dean tried so hard to follow instructions. He was good like that. A good kid. A good kid bleeding all over his father's hands, but John didn't allow his mind to stray there. He pulled gauze out of his pocket, ripping past plastic to reach the soft first aid supplies and mentally noting that Dean was concussed. How bad, he could determine later. For now, the outpouring gash in his son's side would take precedence.

"Stay awake for me, Dean. Say something."

Under normal circumstances, John would hear a smart-ass echo of the word _something_. He would smirk exasperatedly, shoot Dean a disapproving look they both knew he didn't mean. Tonight, Dean seemed to space out, disoriented and distracted by the leaves above their heads, or maybe the stars beyond.

"Count," John ordered and pressed the gauze hard against Dean's wound. "Count to twenty for me, Dean."

He'd taught this trick to his sons early. He would teach it to Anna before she hunted even a spirit. Counting could keep you from panicking, true, and it was helpful in that way. But counting could also keep an injured person alert and focused. It could clue you in to their state of mind and their consciousness without your needing to concentrate too hard on the conversation while you were patching them up.

Dean swallowed thickly, and John sent up a silent, whispered prayer to no one in particular that he wasn't about to throw up. They couldn't afford the lost time and the way it would pull at Dean's side. "One," the word came out surprisingly clear. "T-two."

"Good." John pressed harder and hoped the bleeding would stop quickly. Dean looked dazed, but, as if on autopilot, he managed to spit out more numbers slowly and in the correct order.

"S-sevent-een," he was stuttering by the time John checked the wound to see the bleeding had, indeed, stopped.

"Keep going," John ordered seriously and found a roll of medical tape in his pocket. He quickly secured a fresh gauze pad down as a bandage and looked up at Dean, who'd gone silent. The kid's eyes were drooping, and John frowned. "You gotta help me out here, Dean. I can't carry you," he said regretfully. "Come on, Ace," he encouraged and looped Dean's arm around his shoulders.

Dean was barely with it, but he managed to get to his feet with his father's help. John internally praised his son's strength as they moved forward. It was agonizingly slow for the first few steps, and John could only get them going faster by virtually dragging Dean along as he walked. It wasn't comfortable for either of them, but any other means of travel would waste time they couldn't spare.

It was when the Impala came into sight fifteen minutes later that John realized he had another problem, because he had another kid. And she was gonna freak the hell out when she saw her hero bleeding like he was. He wished he could spare her the trauma, but Dean was breathing painfully beside him and if he didn't want to lose his oldest, he would have to scare his youngest. And he could not lose Dean. He _would not_ lose Dean.

Besides, he told himself defensively, Anna was probably asleep in the passenger seat like always, a thought that usually terrified him-- she was four years old and tiny, such an easy target for anything that might find her, especially when she wasn't alert-- but tonight comforted him.

"Dean," he snapped, managing to catch Dean's wavering attention. "We made it." He leaned Dean against the side of the car and eased the back door open. He was relieved to see that Anna was, indeed, sleeping in the front seat. He carefully laid Dean down in the backseat. "Five minutes," he promised, looking his son right in the disoriented eyes. "Stay awake."

Dean slurred some kind of agreement, and John patted his son on the shoulder before moving to the driver's seat and twisting the key frantically in the ignition. Back at the motel, with a first aid kit, he could do more.

Because his luck was just such shit tonight, though, he barely had time to pull out of the clearing and onto the road before the little bundle of energy lying on the seat beside him woke up. Two little fists rubbed at sleepy eyes and John pressed down on the gas pedal a little harder. He just knew that Anna would soon be feeling the terror and panic he was but with confusion added to the pile of emotions. But he could spare her that, at least put it off, if he could get her to go back to sleep without seeing Dean's wound. He reached out one hand to rest on the side of her face, hoping the blood that stained it was dry enough not to pass to Anna's cheek. Dean's blood on Anna's face was an image John wouldn't let himself even imagine.

"Shh," he hushed in a vain attempt to get her to go back to sleep. He glanced in the rearview mirror to check on Dean. He'd promised five minutes, but it would probably be closer to ten. Dean's eyes were closed, but John could see by the way he was breathing that Dean was still awake.

"Daddy?"

John debated his options in his head and didn't say anything. If they went to a hospital, they risked a lot. Staying under the radar was incredibly important for hunters. And while Dean was no longer a child, CPS might still be called depending on how they played their cards, because Anna _was_ a little kid and you never knew what might send up red flags in a place full of trained doctors and nurses. John was snapped from his thoughts when Anna's hand hit him in the side as she scrambled onto her knees.

"Dean!" she shrieked fearfully. Her foot knocked her stuffed frog off the front seat to the passenger footwell and John looked over just in time to see her slap both hands over her own eyes. Not a second later, though, she spread her fingers just enough to see Dean through them.

"Anna-"

"S'okay, Rugrat," Dean's heavy, tired voice promised as he worked his eyes open to slits. "M'okay."

John just barely managed to grab his daughter before she could launch herself over the seat back.

"Dean?" Anna called, but one glance in the rearview told John that Dean had passed out.

He had a firm hold around Anna's waist and he pulled her sideways into his lap so she wouldn't try to climb over the seat again. Motel, he had decided, not a hospital. He could stitch the gash in Dean's side, and they needn't run any risks with the authorities sticking their noses where they shouldn't. It was a bit of a struggle to keep the car on the road as Anna squirmed to try and find Dean's face again.

"Daddy, what happened to him?"

"Anna, sit still." John was careful to keep his voice as calm as it was stern. He didn't want her disregarding the order, but he also wanted to convey that there was no reason to panic. While it was true that there may well be reason to panic, John knew well that panic helped nothing. Panic made smart people stupid and stupid people dangerous. More importantly, it made manageable situations unmanageable, and this situation was manageable. "Your brother's fine," he told Anna. He hated the word as he said it, because Dean wasn't fine and he thought Anna probably knew that. But it was his job to say that, and he was aware of it in a very objective way, so he turned around and told his unconscious son the same thing.

It was a few silent, tense minutes later that John pulled the Impala into the motel parking lot and killed the engine in front of Room 11. He set Anna swiftly on the seat next to him and shoved open the driver's side door. "Get the first aid kit from the glovebox," he ordered absently. He didn't wait to see that Anna had done as she was told. She was four, she was small, and she was scared, but she was a good, smart kid who knew how to obey orders. He opened the back door and eased Dean out gently, rousing him just enough to stumble through the door and to the closest bed.

Sure enough, John had just pulled Dean's shirt away from the bloody mess of gauze when the first aid kit appeared right in front of him on the bed. He steeled himself against Dean's grunts and hisses of pain and opened the kit to begin pulling out all the supplies he would need. The needle glinted in the room's artificial light, which in turn reflected from Dean's eyes as well.

John was surprised to see Dean alert even for a short enough time to reach out a weak arm and poke his little sister in the stomach. Anna let out a surprised giggle, but her face went miserable again in a second's time as Dean's face paled and he blinked slowly. Of course his moment of lucidity would be spent making her feel safer.

The would had started bleeding again somewhere along the way, evident in the red blotch soaked through the bandage John had tied pristinely clean and tight not thirty minutes ago.

"Anna," he barked with renewed urgency. He knew she would still be nearby just trying not to look at the blood. "Hold the light," he requested as he prepared the stitching needle and dental floss. They were out of stitching kits. Maybe they should have gone to the hospital.

John reprimanded himself silently but harshly. You don't second guess yourself when it counts. Confidence matters when you're the one in charge, the one with all the knowledge and the one firing on all cylinders.

He leaned in to start stitching, but he didn't have the right lighting. Anna was holding the flashlight the best she could, but she was too short to give him the light he really needed to do the job right. John held the needle in his left hand and used his right arm to lift Anna off the floor and settle her on his left knee. It was less than comfortable, but that was the least of his worries at the moment. His bigger concern was that she might shift and bump his arm while he was stitching Dean's side up.

"I need you to stay completely still while I help Dean, Peanut. Can you do that?" The four year old was clearly scared, and it broke John's heart a little to see that look in her eyes, but when she nodded, he still demanded, "Anna."

"Yes, sir. I won't move," she agreed soberly.

John nodded once, drew in a deep breath, let it go, and leaned over his daughter to stitch his son back together.

After putting nine careful stitches in Dean's side, John was relieved to be left with only some cleaning and bandaging to do. His fingers and hands were aching from the time spent threading the needle in and out of Dean's skin, but that wasn't the cause of his relief. With the wound stitched and Dean still breathing, John felt inclined to believe everything was going to be alright.

He set Anna down the moment he was finished bandaging the gash, then packed the kit up neat and tidy. For a minute, John just sat on the edge of the bed and watched Dean breathe, felt his pulse. The next time he woke, John would give him some painkillers, get him to eat something and drink a full glass of water to combat the blood loss. Aside from that, his work was done for the night. It was a good thing, too, because he was so exhausted and sore, he thought it was a wonder he could even still move.

"Daddy?"

The small voice reminded John that he wasn't alone, and he turned to look at Anna. Her hair fell in messy curls around her face, her eyes were wide and fearful, shining wetly with unshed but brimming tears, and the freckles on her nose and under her eyes stood out against her pale face. He knew as he looked at her that she must have been waiting until she knew he didn't need to do any more for Dean before she drew his attention away from her brother. He couldn't help but feel an inkling of pride for her as the knowledge hit home.

John stood from the bed and scooped up the little girl from the floor. The little girl who somehow looked so much like Mary that it made John's heart ache sometimes because she wasn't Mary's child. He remembered Chloe well. He remembered the way the alcohol seemed to outweigh his blood as he stared into her emerald eyes and saw Mary in them. He'd slipped through a crack somewhere that night, as had Chloe Taylor, and they wound up creating this little girl. His little girl. The one Chloe had abandoned out of fear in a way that Mary would never have abandoned _any_ child, let alone one of her own.

"Dean's alright, kiddo," John promised with a tight but truly confident smile. He carried her over to the other bed in the room, hoping she would go to sleep without fuss. It was long past time for her to be in bed. "You have to let him heal. So don't touch him. But when you wake up tomorrow, he'll already be a little better."

"Pinky promise?" Anna asked, little finger outstretched.

John was startled by his own reaction. His throat seemed to close as he reached out his own pinky and hooked it with Anna's. "Pinky promise," he said and only felt a little bit ridiculous. He dropped a kiss on her head and covered her with the motel blanket. "Night, Peanut."

"G'night, Daddy. Tell Dean when he wakes up, okay?"

John smiled again, hoping it was enough of an answer to satisfy her. He stood between the two beds for another couple minutes, just until he saw Anna's eyes flutter shut and stay that way. Then he sighed heavily and walked, exhausted, to the couch.

The darkness had long since fallen, and John laid down, head propped against a pillow on the armrest of the couch. In his hand was half a glass of Scotch. In his mind was a whirlwind of just a few phrases, just a few memories, tossing themselves back and forth, colliding every now and again.

That day Mary brought Sam home from the hospital, Dean created a whole different side to himself just for his little brother. That day Mary was devoured by an angry orange beast created by an unknown and hateful monster, John felt the side of him that was for just his children shrivel and die. The day Anna was born, John made a vow that her life would not be eaten by his quest for revenge in the same way that Sam's and Dean's had been.

Two other images, though, memories, was managing to somehow override these. Dean, his right hand man, laying in a mess of bloody, dead leaves on the forest floor just a couple hours ago. Anna's round, innocently terrified green eyes brimming with tears as she reached out her pinky for John to promise by not five minutes ago. How startled had he been by her trust in him? Trust not earned but still given in that way that only children could manage. Sam had been that way once, and John's unchanging, steadfast, confident rage for a trauma the age of his middle child had chased away Sam's trust, had chased away Sammy.

All of this for family, and he only broke his family. All of this for revenge, and he'd never tasted its sweetness. Everything sacrificed for everything he never allowed himself or his family to experience. All of this because something evil had ripped his family apart, and all of this a means by which John ripped his own family apart.

He should blame Sam. He did blame Sam. But then again, he could never blame Sam for a door he himself slammed shut and locked.

Maybe Sam had every right to leave. All John's promises, all his reasons... they were paradoxes, contradicting one another from second to second, word to word. So if he said, "Stay so I can protect you," maybe what he really meant was, "Stay, and I will somehow get you killed."

Promises, promises. Regrets, goodbyes. Spouses dying, children bleeding.

John lay still on the sofa in a motel room he could not call home. He looked across the room and was surprised to see Anna curled under her brother's arm on his uninjured side even though John had told her to let him be until he'd recovered. She must have moved while he was lost in his own thoughts. These his children who he'd never given a home, were resting under his watch. He wanted to feel strong in that position of guardian. But, truthfully, he never had.

Dean was better at this than John. He could protect and love and hunt. He'd grown inside John's paradox and created his own unfailing sense of the world.

Maybe John couldn't reconcile family with hunting because a happy family seemed like a _before the fire_ pipe-dream and hunting seemed like the crushing reality he'd come to know _after the fire_. It was like crushing the past against the future. But maybe it only felt that way because John was trying to live that moment in between as a way of defending himself against it. Pretend the fire is still the problem today and you don't have to ever face that it happened yesterday, or 19 years ago.

Grasping at straws, that was John's specialty. Making mistakes and finding justifications where there were none, that was John's specialty.

But it was all untrue, because John _was_ strong. He was fierce, confident, unwavering, and sure of his every move.

How could he be so stolid and so shaky at one time, all the time? How had it taken him so long to see how right Sam was?

John needed control like he needed oxygen. He needed his children like he needed oxygen. He needed to avenge Mary, though, too. He needed to hunt and save people from the very monsters that had wrecked his own family.

He needed too many things that refused to walk hand in hand. He tried to force them to play house, but it was doomed to fail from the start. When your son denies the path you've paved for him, you let him go because at least he's happy. When it nearly kills your other child to walk the path you prepared, you tell him to stop and you let him go too. But John wasn't strong enough, and there was that pesky paradox again.

Dean was better at this than John. He could protect and love and hunt. He'd grown inside John's paradox and created his own unfailing sense of the world. Maybe John couldn't reconcile family with hunting because a happy family seemed like a _before the fire_ pipe-dream and hunting seemed like the crushing reality he'd come to know _after the fire_. It was like crushing the past to the future.

Across the room, Anna sighed in her sleep, and John watched Dean's arm tighten around his little sister unconsciously. Yes, Dean was better at this than John. For Dean, the reason for hunting really was family. To Dean, there was no secret, false promise that tomorrow they would kill what killed Mary and then the hunt would be over. To Dean, hunting and family _did_ exist as one.

That gash in Dean's side was as real as that kid by Dean's side. But John knew well that Dean would take a hundred nights of bloody sides for that kid by his side. That was the key, right there. Hunting was for family, hurt was for family, and life was for family.

John, though, hurt his family and pleaded not-guilty. John hurt his family and then told them that the hurt was help. John was a crashing, burning paradox, and the conflicting pieces of him were meeting tonight.

He needed his family. He needed the hunt. But the two clashed and collided in the messiest way.

()()()

The rustle of blankets surprised John at about five in the morning as he poured himself a cup of strong black coffee. For a second, he thought Dean was awake again, even though he'd just dropped back off to sleep about ten minutes ago. He looked up to see Anna scurrying out of the farther bed, though. He'd moved her the first time Dean woke up and she hadn't woken to sneak back over and curl up against her brother since.

He heard the patter of tiny feet on the floor, and he set down his cup of coffee and hurried over just in time to keep Anna from pulling herself up onto Dean's bed. She squawked in protest, but John frowned at her and she instantly went quiet.

"You need to be quiet, Anna," he chastised. "Dean's still sleeping, and it's really important for him to rest right now so he can get better." He felt her sigh as it blew across the front of his neck, and her head settled sullenly on his shoulder.

"Is he better?" Anna whispered the way children do: Too loud for it to really be a whisper, but such a cute and honest effort to be quiet that no one was about to point that out.

"He's a little better, like I said," John told her. "It's really early. Don't you want to go back to sleep?"

"No, thank you," Anna answered simply. John could feel her small fingers fiddling with the hair at the base of his neck absentmindedly as they both looked contentedly at Dean, sleeping and recovering. "Dean always says I can't wake him up until there's the six on the clock. But it's still the five, and you're awake. How come?"

"I'm looking after your brother, Anna."

"Oh." She seemed to be thinking on that, and she patted his stubbly face a second later. "I can watch him now, Daddy, and so then you can sleep."

John was all set to say _Thanks, but no thanks_. But instead he rubbed his burning, tired eyes and asked, "You think you can look after Dean, huh?"

"I did it for him and Sammy 'afore. I hadta tell Dean when Sammy woked up. I did a good job," she said with a slight pout that said she was offended John didn't trust her to do the job.

John was a little preoccupied with the anger and hurt that came with hearing Sam's name as if he were still one of them, still an important piece of their family. He also couldn't help but think, though, that Anna had been only two years old when Sam left and so if Dean had trusted her to tell him when Sam woke then, there was no reason for John not to do the same now.

"I bet you did a great job," he assured seriously. "You want to tell me when Dean wakes up, then?"

Anna nodded eagerly. She was always so happy to have a job to do and a way to help. "I can do it!"

"Good girl. Leave him be, though. You sit on the other bed."

Anna looked a little sad at that order, but she said, "Yes, sir."

"Okay, go watch your brother then, Peanut," he said and set her down with an affectionate pat on the bottom. "I'm gonna get some shuteye."

"Um, Daddy," Anna called in a small voice before he'd even gotten to the couch. John looked over at her inquiringly. "Um, not to be 'noying or nothin', but... can I get Halloween from the car 'afore you go to sleep? Pretty please."

John internally groaned a little. He was pretty sure Halloween was that damned frog she always carried around. If she hadn't been so focused on Dean last night, she probably would have kicked up a fuss about going to bed without the stupid thing. "It's in the car?"

"Yeah-huh."

"I'll go get it. Stay off Dean's bed," he commanded seriously and pointed a stern finger at her. In the car, he hit his head on the dash when he bent down to get the stuffed animal from the footwell and he came up cursing. "Hit my fucking head over a fucking frog," he was muttering as he stormed back toward the motel room door. He took a deep breath before entering, and he tossed the frog in Anna's direction, but she didn't catch it, because the thing went sailing over her head.

Anna gasped. "Daddy! He can get hurt!"

John started to sigh in frustration, but when he took in the adorably angry look on his daughter's face, the corner of his mouth twitched into a half smile. "Sorry, Peanut." He grew serious again, though. "Stay quiet. Don't wake him up, but tell me when he wakes up on his own. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," Anna said obediently. She climbed up onto the other bed, and John settled on the couch to catch some Zs. "Um, Daddy?"

John breathed sharply out his nose at the second interruption which came right before he would have gone off to sleep. " _What_ , Anna?"

"Um, not to be 'noying or nothin'..."

" _What_?"

"Um, can you watch Dean for a little bit of time, 'cause I gotta go to da bathroom."

John rolled his head sideways and found himself mere millimeters from Anna's own face. "He'll be alright for a minute or two," he promised. "You can go to the bathroom."

"Um, okay," Anna said, suddenly smiling at him. "Sorry I woked you up, Daddy."

He couldn't be angry when she looked like that, so John answered, "That's alright, Peanut."

She skipped off to the bathroom. Five minutes later, she was sitting on the vacant bed again and staring intently at Dean's face. He was paler than usual, but not terribly so. His eyes were still closed, and he was laying on his uninjured side now rather than on his back. In this position, he was facing her, so Anna took the time to study every line of his face. If he so much as twitched, she would be ready to tell her father about it.

But Dean didn't move for a long time. Anna got bored and pulled out her legos to build robots and an amusement park while she waited. She still looked up to check on him every couple of minutes. But by the time his fingers twitched and his nose wrinkled, the clock said 7:49. Anna immediately leaped up from her perch on the floor and scurried to the side of Dean's bed. She wanted to make sure he was really awake before she told John, because she got the feeling he could be pretty grumpy when he didn't sleep enough.

"Are you really 'wake, or are you only a little 'wake?" Anna asked quietly and in a way that was almost stern. She squinted at Dean and leaned in so her nose almost touched his. She thought about poking him to see if he would respond or not, but that might count as waking him up and John had specifically said she wasn't allowed to do that. "Dean?" She was surprised when Dean breathed in deeply through his nose, then let the breath back out heavily and rolled onto his back. Instantly he grit his teeth and hissed in a breath, green eyes popping open. "Daddy!"

John shot up into a sitting position, gun at the ready, but he quickly understood what was going on. He blinked tiredly and rubbed his sore eyes. "Could've done that a little more calmly," he grumbled.

"He's awake!"

"I got that," John rasped. He got to his feet and went over to Dean's bedside. His son was squinting in the sunlight blaring through the curtains, and John remembered the concussion he hadn't checked on yet. "Took a hit to the head and you've got nine stitches in your side," he said when he noticed the confusion in Dean's muddled gaze.

Dean seemed to understand as he gave a slow nod and cleared his throat so he could try to speak. John grabbed the water bottle still sitting on the bedside table and handed it to his son. Dean drank gratefully, then looked down with a half smile at the kid still hanging onto the side of the bed.

"She okay?"

"She was in the car the whole time, Dean. Of course, she's fine."

"No, I mean with... Never mind." Dean silently resolved to check for himself later, to make sure Anna understood that he was going to be just fine and that he would never let what had happened to him happen to her. " _You_ okay?" he asked his father.

"Nothing a beer or two couldn't fix."

Dean smirked but it looked a little pained.

"There're painkillers on the nightstand, if you need 'em," John told him. "Wound feel okay?"

"Fine," Dean answered.

John grabbed Anna's arm when she made to climb up onto the bed. "I told you to leave him be," he reminded her sternly.

"That's alright, Dad. She won't hurt me," Dean replied calmly. He offered a hand to help her up, but John lifted Anna onto the bed instead. He didn't want Dean carrying even his sister's weight until his stitches were out.

"Careful," he told her, his air serious.

"Did you do breakfast?" Dean asked, looking between the two of them.

"Daddy hadta sleep b'cause he was up til the clock said 5!"

Dean snorted then grunted and cradled his side with his left arm. "I keep tellin' ya, kid, you don't have to say _the clock said_ every time you tell time. He was up until 5."

Anna pouted at the correction. "I forget a lot. Is your head hurt, Dean?" she asked when she saw him keep squinting in the light. "I can't turn the sun off." She reached over to cover his eyes with both her hands, but Dean swatted her arms away.

"I think I'll close the blinds," John said with a tiny sliver of a smile.

"Breakfast?" Dean asked again.

"I'll go pick something up if you can stay awake and keep an eye on her."

"Sure thing," Dean said, even though the rings around his eyes said he was fatigued.

"You can't play yet, I think," Anna said once John had closed the door behind him. "But we can watch cartoons!"

"Can't think of a better way to spend the morning," Dean answered with a melancholy look in his eyes but a smile gracing the bottom of his face. He watched Anna grab the TV remote from the stand on the other side of the room and hurry back over to sit beside him again. "Can you find _Tom and Jerry_?"

"I can if you ask right."

"Please will you find _Tom and Jerry_?"

Dean smiled. He was Anna's playmate, her best and only friend, but he was also more of a parent to her than John, and he could teach her manners too. He could picture the look on Sam's face at seeing his older brother actually demand that Anna say _please_ and _thank you_. The thought of Sam quickly sobered him, though, and Dean switched the channel to _Tom and Jerry_. Anna's bright, bubbling laugh as Tom stepped on the end of a rake and got smacked in the face with the handle cheered him up just a little.

"How come they don't talk?"

"What?" Dean asked, startled from the edge of sleep by his sister's chirped question. "What'd you say, Munchkin?"

"How come Tom and Jerry never talk?"

Dean squinted down at Anna and tried to think of a way to answer the question that would leave him with some dignity but leave her feeling like he hadn't brushed her off. "Well, uh... You know... I..." He couldn't think of one answer that made even a little bit of sense.

Fortunately, John chose that moment to step through the door into the room with two take-out bags, and breakfast provided the perfect distraction from Anna's question and from cartoons altogether.

Dean conked out almost the second he'd finished his sandwich, and John ushered Anna off his bed and over to the couch where he turned the TV back on and handed her the remote. Anna flicked between channels and couldn't find any of her favorite cartoons playing. "Daddy?" she called as she wandered into the little mini kitchenette-- which was really just a shelf with a coffee pot and a microwave.

"I'm gonna take a shower. I thought you were watching TV."

"There's no _Spongebob_ or _Tom and Jerry_ or nothin' good like that."

John shook his head. "Find something," he said as if it were that simple. "Or play with your toys. Just be quiet and don't wake Dean up."

"How long til he's gonna wake up again?"

"Whenever he feels better. Just don't bother him. Let him sleep."

Anna tilted her head at her father in a way that she said she didn't appreciate his assumption that she was going to bother Dean.

"Go watch TV."

Anna very nearly argued again that there was nothing good on. But then she remembered that John didn't take well to her talking back to him, so she just plopped down in front of the couch with her stuffed frog in her hand and picked the remote back up. She watched a Pokemon cartoon for a little while, but she didn't feel like watching TV, so she shut it off and wandered over to her duffel and pulled out the legos John had made her put away earlier when he stepped on one throwing his trash away after breakfast. She spent a little while rebuilding her amusement park from earlier, but it was annoying redoing all that work, so she stared trying to make the Impala instead. Just as she started wondering what was taking so long, John stepped out of the bathroom in fresh clothes, smelling like aftershave. He was wearing socks but no shoes, and it was a relatively unfamiliar sight. John always had someplace to be.

"How long are you staying, Daddy?" Anna asked curiously as she jammed two legos together and picked up another one.

John looked over with one eyebrow raised. "Someplace else I should be?"

Anna shrugged, "Usually there's a important thing you gotta do. To save people." She said it so nonchalantly, but it was deeper than she knew.

"Not today," John said and ignored the swell in his stomach at how wrong her words were. She should know his family was his priority. His family was his reason for everything. _Which is why you're always getting them hurt for hunting_ , his mind supplied a rebuttal. John didn't dwell on it. "When do you usually take naps?" he asked as it occurred to him what had happened the last time he took her on the road with him and he let her skip nap-time. Boy had that been a mistake. Anna was a good kid, but she could transform into a nightmare when she missed out on necessary sleep. That little pit in John's stomach grew a little as he realized he should _know_ when her nap-time was. He was her father, after all.

"I don't have to do that now."

John didn't buy it for a second, and he wasn't taking that shit lying down. "Lies do not fly here, Anna," he reminded, voice hard.

"Yes, sir." She knocked over her lego creation and let it fall to pieces on the carpet. "Dean always says noon, only usually it's 'afore that, 'cause he says I'm cranky. I don't get cranky, though. He just thinks it's funny when he says it 'cause it makes me mad 'cause I'm _not_ really cranky."

"Okay okay. Noon?"

Indeed, by 11:30, Anna's mood hit rock bottom.

"Come eat lunch," John ordered as Dean slept on in the bed across the room. "Made that macaroni crap your brother bought."

Anna padded into the kitchen, and John realized she'd been in her pajamas all morning. _Whatever_ , he thought. _She's gonna nap in a few minutes anyway_. He helped her onto a chair at the table and put a plate of mac n' cheese in front of her.

"Did you do the geck-zotic way?"

John squinted at her in a look of total bafflement. "The _what_ way?"

"The geckzotic way," Anna repeated without stumbling over the non-word so much this time. "Dean makes it a geckzotic way," she said and nodded seriously at John's confused look.

" _Exotic?_ Are you trying to say exotic?"

"Oh. Yeah. I think."

"How do you make _exotic_ macaroni and cheese?"

"I dunno. It's sweet, though. And really yummy."

John frowned, suddenly wondering if the Fluff Marshmallow Mix he'd found while making the coffee that morning had found its way into the mac n' cheese before. "That's disgusting. Macaroni is a savory dish. You don't put sugar in a savory dish."

"What is sav-ory?"

For the life of him, John couldn't think of a way to describe the word savory to a four year old. "Eat your lunch," he said, and made a mental note to ask Dean what went into _exotic mac n' cheese_. If it was the Fluff... Well, John wouldn't eat that, but he'd never had to feed Anna more than one or two days in a row, so if sugar in mac n' cheese helped, who was he to judge?

"But you can make the gexotic one?"

For the life of him, John didn't know why she was so determined to put the letter g at the beginning of the word exotic, but that was hardly his primary concern. "Maybe next time," he stalled. "Eat."

"But can I wait til there's the gexotic one, please?"

Her tiny effort to be polite did nothing to quell John's growing temper. "Eat your lunch and stop complaining."

Anna shrunk a little in her chair and ate slowly. John didn't fail to notice how she kept making faces every other bite, trying to make sure he was aware of how much she hated her food. About halfway through the bowl, she stopped and pushed it away. "I'm full. Can I play, please?"

John leaned over to see how much she'd eaten and shrugged. Seemed like enough food considering how small she was. "You can play later. It's nap-time right now."

Anna pouted, "But I'm not tired. Can I nap later?"

"If you nap later, you won't want to go to bed tonight."

"But I won't wanna go to bed tonight anyways."

John couldn't help but acknowledge how true that was, but he didn't say so out loud. "Go take a nap, Anna. I'm not asking a third time."

Again with a pout firmly in place, Anna dragged her feet slowly toward the bed. "Um, Daddy, I gotta go to da bathroom first."

John raised one eyebrow. He had no doubt she was stalling. "Hurry up," he instructed.

Anna took her sweet time in the bathroom. She took care of business, then washed her hands four times, moving the soap bubbles around the sink with her hands and filling the sink with water and pulling the plug to watch it drain. There was a little mini whirlpool when she first pulled the plug and it was so funny that Anna started to fill the sink again.

A knock at the door caught her attention. "I'm not done yet," she lied.

"Come on, Rugrat. I gotta take a leak."

Anna perked up at the sound of Dean's voice and flung the door open. She threw her arms around his legs even as he leaned heavily against the doorframe. John was hovering just a foot or so away. "I thought you was about to sleep forever and ever."

"Nope. It's your turn now," Dean corrected.

"But now you're up. We can play and then when you go to sleep again and then I can nap."

"Not how it works."

"But-"

"Put the lip away, kiddo. You know that shit don't work, because I'm the one who has to deal with it when you get all cranky."

Anna frowned even deeper. "I don't get cranky."

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."

"What?"

John stepped in and moved Anna out of the doorway so Dean could get to the bathroom. He was limping pretty heavily, but he seemed to be holding himself up with decent stability, so John didn't offer any more help. He dropped Anna on the couch and gave her a blanket. Her stuffed frog was already lying on one of the cushions.

"Go to sleep. No more stalling."

Anna sighed. "When I wake up, can we play hide and seek? Dean always plays hide and seek with me."

"Mhm. Dean does a lot of stuff I don't do." He'd meant in jest, but-

"I know," Anna said sadly and rolled over to face the back of the couch.

Caught off guard, John frowned and swallowed a lump in his throat. "What, uh, what else does Dean do when you take your nap?"

"He sings to me sometimes," Anna said quietly. "The bridge song."

John didn't know what she meant by the bridge song, and that made him feel worse. The hits had been coming all day, and still each one hurt worse than the last. Was he a hunter, or a father? He knew the answer, but he refused to say it aloud. "Sorry, Peanut, I don't know that one," he said.

There was a song he used to play for the boys. But it was a song Mary had loved, and he couldn't play Mary's favorite song for Chloe Taylor's daughter.

"Go to sleep. When you wake up, maybe Dean'll play hide and seek with you."

Anna breathed out a heavy, tired breath. "Who played hide and seek with Dean?" she asked innocently. "When he was little."

"Sammy did," John answered hoarsely. Sam's name shouldn't be like Voldemort. It couldn't be.

"But Dean was as big as me when Sammy was born. He said. So before Sammy got big enough, who played hide and seek with him?"

"I- I don't think Dean felt like playing hide and seek when he was four, Anna."

"Nobody played with him," Anna discerned. "Is that why he plays with me?"

"I don't know why Dean's so good with you."

"What?"

"I don't know where he learned his tricks," John admitted, only because Anna would never remember this conversation when she was old enough to understand it. "I never taught him."

Anna sighed tiredly a second time. "Dean says you can learn a lot of good things by yourself."

Dean said that because Dean was forced to learn a lot of good things by himself. And a lot of bad things, too.

But John didn't say that. He just sat on the edge of the couch cushion as Anna fell asleep. Then he looked up and met Dean's eyes over the back of the couch.

"It's okay, Dad," Dean told him. There was an unspoken understanding between them that could never be solidified by words. In fact, words would only further alienate it.

"It's not," John answered, unforgiving. "It's not."

But the next morning, he left, because Dean could walk and the monsters hadn't quit just yet.

All of this for his children, yet Dean had never been a child. All of this for his children, yet Sam ran as soon as he had the chance. All of this for his children, yet Anna already knew his best wasn't good enough. All of this for family, yet, in all of this, he was losing his family.

_la fin_


End file.
